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The Thief at the End of the World: Rubber, Power, and the Seeds of Empire

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Tires, pencil erasers, shoe soles--rubber is so ubiquitous now that everyone takes it for granted. Joe Jackson, in his superb book, "The Thief at the End of the World," takes us back to the last half of the nineteenth century, when rubber--its unique and extraordinary properties just starting to be recognized--was so valuable that nations were prepared to kill or die for it. Jackson tells the story of rubber through the life story of one of the rubber industry's pivotal figures: Henry Wickham, Victorian dreamer, adventurer, and nature artist, whose 1876 theft of 70,000 Hevea Brasiliensis seeds from the Amazon jungle was the genesis of the vast British rubber plantations in Southeast Asia, creating the rubber industry as we know it today. Wickham's theft, unfortunately, also destroyed the wildly profitable Brazilian rubber business, relegating that nation to Third World status from which it is only now emerging. Every page of "The Thief at the End of the World" is saturated with danger and violence, from the prevalence of vampire bats to the hideous, often murderous treatment meted out to rubber tappers, or seringueiros, from the rubber tycoons and their vicious supervisors.

Through it all stands Wickham, a curiously emblematic figure of his age. A combination of idealistic optimist and bold opportunist, Wickham chased his dream of wilderness riches across the Amazon basin, then to Australia and New Guinea, sacrificing everything to that dream including his family and even his loving, loyal wife, Violet. He dreamed of preferment from the British Crown, never dreaming that the man who held the means of preferment--the crabbed, paranoic Joseph Hooker, head of the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, near London--misprized Wickham as a whiner and amateur.

"The Thief at the End of the World" is a swift, graceful and thrilling read, as well as an entertaining short course in the history and chemistry of rubber. Its minor characters are worth their own books (such as Lucille Wetherall, mentioned in one paragraph, a Maine woman who, having lost her life savings in a failing Mexican rubber plantation, showed up at the plantation and managed it for years until the Mexican Revolution forced her to flee). Above all, Jackson makes us feel the intoxicating pull of the jungle, and reminds us that harder-headed men than Wickham were susceptible to it; he begins and ends the book with the vivid tale of Fordlandia, Henry Ford's failed attempt to establish a Brazilian rubber empire. Reading "The Thief at the End of the World," Werner Herzog's film "Fitzcarraldo" seems almost tame by comparison. Read it and get hooked.

The story of an earlier resource bubble, one that had a longer run but crashed spectacularly anyway. It is also the story of conscious empire building, using natural rubber as a lever in an attempt to dominate world trade. The book follows the depressing career of a decidedly unlikely adventurer, whose exploits in getting rubber seeds from Amazonia to England's Kew Gardens would be hard to duplicate if it were a fictional story. Along with the rubber seeds are other social and class seeds that ultimately led to the British Empire's fall. The book's 13 chapters are divided into three parts that cover a brief overview of natural rubber's harvesting and early uses, the collection and transport of the seeds, and the subsequent path of the latex industry up until the 1930s. Capped by an epilog, three appendices and an ample bibliography, this book is rewarding on several levels: As an amazing, almost unbelievable adventure story; as a history of what was once a crucial natural resource; and a comparative study of the Amazonian and late Victorian cultures.

The author tells a number of fascinating stories as he follows the life of Henry Wickham from childhood through a series of schemes and near-death adventures involving bot fly larvae, fever, nearly chopping off his foot, and endless fruitless attempts to be a planter. Henry's claim to fame was the highpoint of the book, a serendipitous incident with Kew, a ship, and the Hevea seeds. The style is mostly fine, though it's a bit over-written, as when the expressions in a photograph are scrutinized for what they might reveal about thoughts, hopes, feelings. This tendency to try to fill in the facts with humanizing details is a minor annoyance, as are the frequent digressions to establish the scene with global history. Those gripes aside, the author does a delightful job filling an important gap in the history of rubber and plant explorers.

The Thief at the End of the World
By
Joe Jackson
Rubber, Power, and the Seeds of Empire

The Rubber Industry has been and continues to this day to be one of the dominant industries of this world. In the late 1800's it was the "oil industry" of its day. It was actually started in the early 1800's, however, it wasn't until the Civil War in the United States that production and usage of rubber rose to significant levels. Think shoes, boots, hats, coats, pontoon boats, tents, haversacks, and railroads. The next boost to rubber production was the Franco Prussian War in 1870 to 1871. As with many businesses, wars provided the impetus for its rise.

The original source of the world's rubber was the Amazon in Brazil and was a product of trees in the Amazonian forests. These trees were amongst many other species of trees in these forests and were hundreds of feet apart. To tap the rubber from these trees was an arduous process. England ended up dominating the rubber business for many years because of its Indonesian plantations where they had rows of rubber trees planted only several feet apart and laborers could easily go from one tree to another. The trees in these plantations came from seeds in the Amazon. They were the result of one of the largest examples of bio-piracy in the world. They were the result of one man, Henry Wickham.

Henry grew up in England in the 1850's when world explorers were the "rock stars" of the day. He was the son of a struggling widower, and his childhood was not an easy one. During these hard times he would fantasize about being an explorer. He was exposed to the many "new" uses of rubber during the "Great Exhibition" of 1851. This was where Charles Goodyear spent $30,000 (a huge amount of money in that day) to exhibit and display the results of his new process of vulcanization.

All of this had great impact on young Henry Wickham. As a young man Henry traveled to Brazil to search out and learn everything he could about this wonderful substance. He was convinced that his future was in rubber. Henry traveled into the Amazon, was subject to hardship, disease, wild animals, snakes and everything you might associate with traveling in a tropical jungle in the mid 1800's. He almost lost his life more than once. A significant part of Joe Jackson's book is his descriptions of Henry's travails in the Amazonian jungles. In May of 1876, Henry emerged from these jungles with 70,000 seeds for rubber trees. He smuggled these to the Kew Gardens in England, where they were planted and out of these 70,000 seeds approximately 2,800 germinated. These seeds were the genesis of England's domination of the rubber trade which began in the early 1900's.

One of the main ironies of this story is that Henry received virtually no credit for these accomplishments until late in his life. For years, he was not only, not recognized for his achievements, but was ignored by the establishment he worked so hard for. Finally, he received some overdue recognition, was granted a knighthood and a modest stipend. This, while many others had become fabulously wealthy many years before.

Mr. Jackson's style of writing can be arduous if you do not have a genuine interest in his subject. If you do (which I do), it is a fascinating read. You feel that you are in the jungle with Henry, and Mr. Jackson's detail is nothing short of amazing. This is a story of monumental implications which were the result of one man's monumental efforts.

Joe jackson's book is fantastic, well written, documented, researched and covers a tremendous amount of intriguing materials and stories regarding Henry Wickham. Anyone interested in the Amazon Basin's history as well as the role of international trade and globalization issues would appreciate this epic historical account. My only beef with the kindle version - it appears that NONE of the photos were included in the kindle version, even though the text mentions and discusses their merits. The kincle store should require publishers who do NOT include photos, to state that upfront, prior to purchase. Despite the lack of photos - a spectacular and fascinating read!

Rubber would not at first seem like such an exciting product. However, the history of it, from La Condamine's first samples brought from the Amazon to France to the momentous steal of seeds by Wickham (main character of the book) to Kew Gardens and later to Malaysia, is a truly outstanding saga of what would today be known as biopiracy but was at the time simply the obligation to serve the British crown.

The economic collapse left behind by rubber in the Amazon is coupled with the progress brought upon the British colonies in southeast Asia. The book contemplates the history of why rubber (along with coal and steel) became such a valuable material desired and needed for much of the industrial and railroad revolution. The bottleneck was supply of rubber, which came from the tree in not too reachable circumstances in the Amazon. Wickham and the British crown sought to make it more productive and widely available (hence cheaper).

In the midst of it all is the curious Wickham character - part idealist, part opportunist, who would eventually sacrifice everything (family, love, etc.) chasing dreams across the world from the Amazon to New Guinea.

I highly recommend this book for anyone who is widely knowledgeable about the Amazon and would like more info on this singular event that changed its history.

"The Thief at the End of the World" by J Jackson is another book in the popular genre of the history of everyday things - in this case, how natural rubber was taken from its home in Brazil.

Jackson writes somewhat in the style of a thriller writer, but it is appropriate given the tale of deception and theft that he relates. He is actually a fine writer - far superior to the soulless journalese of many books in this genre. His gift for writing and description makes the book quite exciting, but he does not fall into the trap of "embellishing" the tale for dramatic effect.

Henry Wickham, the central figure in the story, is one of those driven, obsessed men who were so common in the Victorian era of the British Empire, and even until World War 2. They were usually flawed and often tragic figures who played key roles in the saga of Empire building. What was it about Great Britain in the19th century that produced such an abundance of restless men?

In reading this book, one is struck by the trials Wickham endured, his disappointments, his brushes with death in remote jungles. Yet he always got up to try again, driven by some inner vision. After reading his story, one is filled with admiration for such people.

There is a very moving portrait in the book of Wickham, aged over 80, posing in slight profile for the camera. He looks strong and healthy, with the face of a much younger man. In the evening of his life, recognition and honours were showered on him and one might have expected a happy, even triumphant air in such a portrait. But the wary eyes and the sad smile half-hidden by his great moustache tell of his trials, and of unfulfilled dreams that died in the remoter regions of the British Empire.

Jackson gives an excellent account of the frantic Rubber Boom to hit the Amazon in the early years of the 20th century as demand for rubber for tyres, insulation and many other products soared and vast fortunes were made and squandered in luxuries such as the Opera house at Manaus. The bubble was quickly followed by a classic bust as plantation rubber from Wickham's smuggled seeds quickly killed the Amazonian wild supply.

Jackson's description of the boom and bust is one of the best accounts I have read and applies to all bubbles - right down to those of our day, such as the mad dotcom bubble.

There is a deeper message in the story of this book that Jackson only briefly alludes to. In the 19th century Empire-builders such as the English believed that everything in nature was put there by God for the use and pleasure of Man (but other countries were arguably much worse). This was the religious justification for ruthless exploitation of nature for profit and "sport".

Thankfully, most of the worst excesses of that era are past. But many traditional societies in poor countries are still being plundered for their knowledge of the medicinal and other uses of plants. Foreign companies often develop lucrative products based on this knowledge, but they rarely ever compensate the people from whom they stole the knowledge in the first place. Sadly, many traditional societies are easy prey, and the predators often lack sufficient moral restraint to prevent injustices being done.

Not surprisingly, the custodians of traditional knowledge are waking up to the exploiters and are starting to realise the value of what they have. They are becoming increasingly reluctant to share knowledge with inquisitive foreigners. No one wins in this situation: the world is denied potential new drugs and the knowledge itself risks being lost as traditional societies change and custodians of knowledge die out.

Jackson's descriptions of the Amazonian tropical jungles are particularly evocative and accurate. I have travelled through the jungles of the Amazon and Central America and I often felt the joy of recalling familiar things while reading this book. The river boats on which I have travelled are almost the same as the boats described in the book.

Although Brazil is central to the story, and numerous place names are mentioned, there is not a single map in the book. It's an astonishing omission, since most readers will be unfamiliar with the detailed geography of either country. Being able to see on a map the places that played key roles in the drama would have added greatly to the book.

There is an extensive section of notes and an exhaustive bibliography.

The bottom line: I really liked this book. It is enjoyable and informative read about a little-known episode of biopiracy, written by an author who knows his craft.

Coming from Malaysia, I am aware that my birth country was the source of rubber for the British Empire. How this came about was unknown to me, until I read this book. The rubber used by industry did not originate in Malaysia; that claim goes to the Amazon. And this book tells the story of how one man, with blind ambition and reckless drive brought the botanical sources of rubber out of the Amazon, to the museums and trading centers of England, and then on board British ships to the rest of the world. The book follows the key character, Henry Wickham, through his personal travails, dealing with wild animals, devious business rivals, condescending British officials, and the relationships with his friends and family, as his life becomes focused on rubber, and later on, other biological extracts. The book tells the life of Mr. Wickham from the ground level up, and world's events are told in relation to his quest and his work, These include the Fordlandia experiment that repeated all of Wickham's mistakes and learned none of his lessons, to the white settlements of Australia, where white colonists would never learn the ways that Wickham used to live with the natives. Overall, a very exciting and engaging read.

What a terrific introduction into the world of 19th century explorers,and Henry Wexler in particular. The author describes the dangers of living in an environment as threatening as the Amazon basin, the great rubber boom centered in such exotic towns as Manaus and Santorem, Brazil, and the horrific treatment of the indigenous people at the hands of massively greedy and out of control rubber barons. It is also a wonderful character study of Wexler and the strange and nomadic life he and his wife lived.

This is an outstanding book that I highly recommend. I recently read it while traveling on the Amazon and it added much enjoyment to our excursion.

Gave this to my husband who loves history books and he loved it. One of his favorites and well written.